Description:
The Face UI toolkit is made up of a series of tools designed to speed up the process of facial rigging. The main component provides an enhanced interface that works alongside the morpher modifier. It provides the ability to organize morpher channels in folders and has a re-sizable interface to allow longer channel names than the crowded morpher interface can. This tool also makes creating and hooking up viewport joystick controls a breeze. More info on those components coming up soon.
Check out a small demonstration of the main features.
Motivation:
The motivation from this project stemmed from my frustration with the design of the Morpher modifier. Because of a design limitation in max, all modifier interfaces are limited to a specific width. This works fine for most modifiers, however the morpher is almost impossible to use when dealing with a large number of shapes.
I also wanted a way to organize said shapes into categories for easy access and browsing. I wanted a tool that isolated commonly used functions in the Morpher to avoid all the scrolling necessary when navigating the modifier.
The last step for me was to provide an easy to use joystick hookup automation tool that was integrated with my new and improved Morpher aid.
Solution
My main priority for this project besides the previously listed goals was not to re-invent the wheel. I stayed away from re-writing the entire Morpher interface and opted for a tool that made it possible to use alongside the existing modifier.
An extended .net Treeview control was used to display and organize the shape data.